The B List isn’t for Barkley

Suns President Lon Babby all but dismissed the possibility of hiring Charles Barkley as the team’s next general manager on Tuesday, but Barkley told Brad Cesmat on his “Big Guy on Sports” radio show on XTRA Sports 910-AM that he’s interested in the job.

But Barkley put his finger on the problem with the scenario when he said, “For me personally, I need another challenge and that challenge is running an NBA team.”

He also said of club president Lon Babby and managing partner Robert Sarver: “The notion of Lon and Robert telling me about basketball players. . .that’s not going to happen.”

Thing is, Barkley makes sense in Babby’s position — the face of the basketball operation and the guy who makes final basketball decisions.

He would be great with the media. He would have instant credibility with current and future NBA players.

But I can’t imagine Barkley serving as general manager and answering to Babby. I can’t even imagine him answering to managing partner Robert Sarver for long.

Serving as a general manager is not “running an NBA basketball team.” It’s scouting players, evaluating NBA talent, knowing how pieces fit together.

That isn’t to say Barkley couldn’t do the job. I’m just not convinced that’s the job he wants to hold. When Steve Kerr was in charge of basketball operations, he was the president and GM. That makes more sense.

But, for better or worse, Sarver changed the structure and split the duties when he hired Babby, whom he just gave a two-year contract extension.

I’ll say this much.

In Babby’s position, I have to believe Barkley would come up with a better list of candidates for the GM job than we’ve seen so far.

It appears Milwaukee assistant GM Jeff Weltman is atop the list, with a bunch of other B-List names below him.

None of them are going to energize the fan base — certainly not the way Sir Draftnik would.

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